In a place as beautiful as Moro Moro, with its rolling green mountains and misty blue skies, it’s hard to imagine trash and contamination being a problem. But in a place where only a few years ago baskets and cloth diapers were the norm, the ubiquitous plastic bags and disposable diapers of “progress” and “globalization” now litter the ground of the Moro Moro dump, a small dumping area about a 20 minute walk from the town square of this small village of 500 people.
It was at the dump that we began Saturday’s workshop on recycling and environmental concientization: a baker’s dozen of MCCers and Moro Moreños faced with the trash we generate. It is simple to throw the waste we produce in the trash and never have to think about it again, but seeing it face to face is a reminder that most of the trash we generate does not simply disappear, but rather accumulates, and is forming a legacy of contamination not only for this generation, but for generations to come.
Plastic, perhaps the most notorious contamination culprit, requires on average about 400-450 years to fully decompose (according to the EPA), then leaving behind its toxic chemicals in the ground and the water.
However, in Moro Moro there is no recycling center and so we emphasize the other 2 of the “3Rs” (reduce, reuse, recycle) – reduce and reuse. The group suggested taking their own re-usable bags or baskets to the tienda (store) instead of using plastic bags that before had not been a part of their cultural practice; and avoiding disposable plates and cups that serve for one use just to be thrown away.
Also part of the workshop was teaching the group how to make durable, multi-use handbags out of the bags that people do consume, primarily the renowned “Pil” bags that contain milk, yogurt, and juice – a way of “re-using” bags that would otherwise end up on the street or in the dump.
Despite the difficulty of accessing recycling resources, the group did mention the idea of collecting recyclables and then transporting them to Santa Cruz for recycling whenever someone is traveling that way.
For those of us who live (or have lived) in the US, recycling is a much less complicated manner – we simply drop off our recyclables at the local recycling center (if you’re from Dalton it’s on North Fleet St. off of Old Lincoln Way across from the park by Buckeye feed and it’s open 24 –7). But recycling isn't the only way to care for creation – also simply reducing the amount of trash we generate can make a big difference (eg not buying bottled water – our water is safe to drink from the tap so buying bottled water is a waste of money, energy and plastic. And limiting the things we buy that come with lots of packaging or simply using re-usable cloth bags instead of plastic or washing dishes instead of using disposable).
You may be asking why any of this matters? And maybe to you it doesn't matter, but maybe it should…Coming from a Christian faith perspective, if we believe that God created the earth and entrusted it to our care, then being good stewards of what God has entrusted to us should make us care about environmental issues. Often, Christians have approached the earth itself as disposable – the flawed work of the potter that would be destroyed by its creator and replaced with a new one (although, at this rate it is us - the humans - not God - who are doing a good job of destroying the earth).
But when we see the beauty of what God has made, the intricacies and miracles of nature, to treat the earth in such a manner seems little short of a slap in God’s face. The imperfection isn’t God’s work – it’s ours – the result of living in a world marred by human sin. I doubt it pleases God to see the earth littered with garbage and the air heavy with pollution. We may be temporary tenants, but does that give us a licence to destroy and exploit what God has created for our benefit?
If we believe that God desires for us a life more abundant and has entrusted us to care for creation, then it becomes problematic to assign God the responsibility for the changes we are experiencing in our climate and the more severe weather patterns resulting from those changes when they can be traced to human action, to our own refusal to limit our consumption and subsequent contamination patterns.
This is not to say that God does not care for us, God does care deeply for our well-being, but God also allows us to reap the consequences of our choices and as the pinnacle of creation humankind has been entrusted with a great responsibility to care for God's handiwork - let's rise to the occasion!
If you are interested in more information on the topic see the following links:
Ten Scriptural Themes for Ecological Living
http://mcc.org/respub/occasional/134.html
http://mcc.org/careforcreation/
http://www.mennocreationcare.org/
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